For those who love the poetry and stories of Jalal al-Din Rumi, the 13th century Sufi Mystic. Daily posts present a variety of translators and translations. Many English speaking people are coming to an appreciation of Rumi's poetry through the translations of Coleman Barks and Camille and Kabir Helminski. Examples of those popular works are offered on Sunlight, along with the lesser known translations of Nader Khalili, Jonathan Star, Annemarie Schimmel, William Chittick and Ibrahim Gamard.

Your eyes must complete their course of LoveFor you to beat a path to courteous truth;Spend not your time with cold faces in dead placesOr else your breath will freeze your breast and heart.From the pulp of yearning go beyond its form to seekMore than solace in the natural suffering called Love.If you're obtuse and heavy as burdened clay enclosedBy gravity, you'll never lift off and circle the sky;Come as fine as a thousand dancing particles of dust,So float and find your feet in the silken path of light.Choose to break or else be broken by the epicOf your maker; for death will break your fleeting selfLike an empty shell without a pearl. When a leafWithers, in season new roots duly restore it green;Why then flirt with rootless lovesThat steal your eyes from the Unseen?

Gaze on the cheeks of love that you may gain theattributes of true men; sit not with the cold ones so youwill not be chilled by their breath. From the cheeks of love seek something other thanthe form; your business is to be a fellow sufferer with love. If you have the attributes of a clod, you will never flyin the air; you will fly in the air if you break to pieces andbecome dust. If you do not break to pieces, he who composed youwill break you; when death breaks you, how will you becomea unique pearl? When a leaf becomes yellow, the fresh root makes itgreen; why are you content with a love from which you turnyellow?